ATG is still the same. No units, technologies, locations or terrain have been changed. Your ATG experience will be differ only in that you are given three extra options for random games. These affect resources and supply only. Each option makes your task harder to a larger or lesser degree depending on how you have set up your game. They have been designed to bridge the gulf that exists between AI and AI+ opponents.

If you find that beating the AI is too easy (after some experience with the game) and that the AI+ is overwhelming you then this mod could be a means of ramping up the difficulty to a happy medium somewhere between the two.

The difficulty is increased by providing a more strategic focus to the game. Resources, where they are and how they find their way back to your Capital along with supply and transportation routes matter even more than before.

None of the above applies to the AI. The options affect the Player only.

Micromanagement isn’t welcome here. The focus is on a practical implementation. You are provided with some management tools but they are fun ones.

Did I mention that they are options and that nothing else has changed? Think I did. Take it up with my Lawyer, she’s Nasty

This mod wasn’t initially made for general use. I made it for myself because that’s the way I like the game to be.

As there seems to be a level of interest I’ve tidied it up, squashed every known bug, and given it a polish before releasing it.

However keep in mind that what you have here is one persons self-indulgent vision of how it should be and that he probably won’t be inclined to align it to somebody else’s view of the world.

Having said this I hope that you enjoy the Resource Mod as much as I do. It adds another layer of interesting decisions on top of an already excellent game.

The Three Options

Connected Resources

The biggie. Resources don’t count unless they can trace an uninterrupted path back to your Capital via rail lines and ports. Select this and your days of having teams of Oompah Loompah’s that magically transport resources through secret chocolate coated doors from over the hills and far away are over. Transport Resources

Choose this and it’s no longer enough for resources to be connected to your Capital, they have to be physically moved. To facilitate this you gain a valued employee, The Fat Controller. He takes care of all the details while you concentrate on providing him with the necessary means and by telling him where to focus his efforts. Beans and Bullets

Ever wondered how all that supply made it from your Headquarters to your units? It was the Oompah Loompahs again. Running around the map when nobody was looking, high on sugar, hunched over in pain, humping heavy boxes of beans and bullets to your hard fighting troops. That’s why you get the grey screen between turns. It’s not pretty.

This option fires the little chocolate chain gangs and replaces them with trucks. As your army grows larger you need more trucks. Fall short and you may find that your supply range (the 250 AP that shows up when you press F5) isn’t what it used to be.

Want a big army? Better go talk to General Motors about a deal. Will this slow my Game down?

Nope. ATG, unlike many other games, has been built properly.

I have two computers. One new and fast and one old and slow. Running a very large map with all the mod options selected the old fella clocks in an extra five seconds of turn processing time. On the new box it’s negligible.

You can time it on your own system easily as all the code driving it runs while the ‘Round Events’ message is displayed. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Will it make my Game harder?

Yes it will. Each option you select adds to the challenge for the human player.

To give you an idea I normally play random games against the AI and can generally count on beating it with ease. Against the AI+ I have an uphill struggle. With all three mod options I now find myself having to work hard to beat the AI. It’s doable but I have to box a lot smarter than before.

I should point out that the mod’s impact on the game varies significantly depending on your map generation settings. As a rule the more spread out and watery your map is the tougher it gets. Island hopping across a randomly generated Pacific Ocean isn’t easy. On the other hand these types of maps are where the AI is at its weakest so it kind of balances out.

The idea of the mod is to bump the difficulty vs. the standard AI but do so in a way that adds interesting decisions to the game rather than just make it harder.

How Buggy is it?

Well it isn’t. Says I. Hopefully.

I’ve been kicking the h*ll out of it for the last two weeks and it hasn’t broken yet. See what you can do.

A resource that isn’t connected doesn’t provide any benefit to you. Only when it can trace a path back to your Capital do you receive the RAW or OIL.

The path must be either a direct rail link to your Capital, or if that isn’t possible, a rail link to a Port (or Shipyard) that itself can trace a valid route back to your Capital. This route could consist of a chain of Ports and rail-lines as long as they eventually make it back to your Capital.

The picture above shows a simple situation. The three resources sites on the main island with the Capital have a direct rail connection. There are a further two resource sites on the big island (circled in yellow) that have rail connections to three separate coastal cities, each of which can trace a sea route back to the Capital.

There are four isolated resource sites on various islands that are circled in red. These are unconnected and won’t benefit you until you land engineers and construct a port and rail infrastructure linking them to your Capital.

A City on the coast is considered a Port as are like-named structures that you build with your engineers such as Ports or Shipyards.

The mod determines the length and breadth of your transport network at the beginning of each turn. Having done so it looks at all your resource sites and figures out if a valid path exists for each. With a thumbs up you are connected and in the money, so to speak. Thumbs down and your Resource site sadly fails to resource this turn.

Unconnected Resource sites are denoted by a red background on the map for easy identification.

Shown above is a more interesting situation. The Capital here is inland but it is connected to a coastal city by a rail link. The coastal city has a viable sea route to a port on the Southern Island which should normally be enough. But remember the resource sites themselves must have a rail connection to either the Capital or a Port that, eventually, reaches the Capital. You can see that all three sites have a rail connection to a city but that city doesn’t have a rail line to the only port on the island, hence unconnected resources with the red highlights (under their names, eg. OIL) indicating this.

Enemy zones of control, blockaded ports and broken rail lines all act as broken links in the chain. If there are multiple possible routes the mod will choose the best one (the shortest).

If you would like to know what route is being used for a particular site then center the map on your capital and press F5. Follow this by right clicking on the resource site in question and the red arrows show the route taken.

Due to a few minor variations in how a supply path is calculated by ATG and how a transport path is worked out by the mod there may be the occasional differences to the path indicated by the red arrows. These are rare and have minimal impact.

Here is an advanced example. The Capital on this map is way down in the bottom left of the picture. The Raw resource (‘A’) is connected by its rail link to a nearby port. From here it has to be shipped north then railed south to the Capital..

But what about the Raw site (‘B’), top left? It traces a rail link to a shipyard via two linked cities. From this shipyard it traces a sea link east and another, final, rail link south to the Capital.

Take a look at the Raw site middle right (‘C’). It has a rail link to a city in the west, then a sea link heading further west to another coastal city, then a rail link south west to the shipyard and then back to the Capital via another sea and rail link.

Likewise the Oil site (‘D’) top right, traverses five separate rail and sea links to reach the Capital.

All of the above are connected resources. The mod can handle any combination of paths provided they follow a linked route back to your Capital.

While the above is a contrived example that I quickly knocked up in the editor it demonstrates the nebulous nature of your transport network – particularly on ocean maps - and how certain rail lines or ports act as critical links in the chain. Lose control of these ‘hubs’ and you’re in real trouble.

The resource numbers on the main display screen need a little explanation. The game automatically tallies up resources regardless of their connection status. As this is hardcoded the mod subtracts from the total any resources that aren’t connected.

The White values will be accurate at all times and reflect the true resource situation. The Yellow values only really apply to RAW – resources chewed up by your production – and they will also be correct. The Green values indicate the sum total of each resource available this turn regardless of whether they are connected or not. Ignore this. Instead use the ‘Connected Resource Report’ shown below to get a snapshot of your available resources.

Beans and Bullets

All those pretty colours when you press F5.

They show the extent of the Supply range from your HQ’s to your units. Currently this is a passive game function that just happens. Beans and Bullets put some backbone into it and requires you to provide trucks to make it so.

The trucks you require don’t have to be assigned to particular Headquarters. In fact they can be part of a combat formation hooning off around the map. They are assumed to do double duty running supplies during the night. As long as you have enough trucks and they are somewhere in your Empire then it’s all good.

Being inside the hold of a cargo ship rolling around the ocean doesn’t count. For the purposes of the mod, trucks stowed in cargo ships are considered persona non-grata. They are, for the duration of their voyage, a non-truck.

The report below demonstrates what happens when you don’t have enough trucks to keep your troops fed and ammo’d up.

Notice that the size of your (in the example) Army has increased from 1380 PP (Power Points) in the previous example to 1830 PP in this. As a result your requirements for trucks have jumped from 7 to 9. As you haven’t got 9 trucks there is a shortfall of 2.

Which drops your Supply Range proportionally (you only have 70% of your required trucks) from 250 AP to 175 AP. Best not to let it go any lower.

You’ll notice in both examples that the trucks running supplies on your behalf burn up a certain amount of fuel (set at 20 bbls [edit: bbls means barrels] of fuel per truck). What’s worth knowing here is that you are only charged fuel for transporting supplies for the required number of trucks, not for every one you own.

So if you cleaned out the East Coast Showrooms and cornered the truck market, say a fleet of fifty, then you still only pay fuel for the six, for example, that are required.

In further good news you are given, at the start of the game, a bunch of trucks for free. Courtesy of your Government. Your Government loves you.

The amount you are given is what’s required to commence the game with the standard supply range sitting at 250 AP, after that it’s up to you as to how much you value your troops being in supply.

Interestingly if you are on the defensive you can get away with a smaller supply range but when launching an offensive it’s a case of the more the better. Unfortunately for world conquerors the maximum range is capped at 250 AP.

Another point of interest is that the Mod calculates your Army size in Power Points at the start of every turn but it excludes your navy from the calcs.

Suffice to say that if you want to build a really big army and keep it supplied then you had better love trucks. As in real life, big armies drag a big tail around behind them.

The information bar along the top of the screen displays your current Supply range in AP (action points which translate to a particular number of hexes depending on the terrain involved. Eg. it goes forever if it is following a railway line and stops dead in a swamp). Ignore the yellow zero, it’s there for decoration purposes only.

All calculations for the Beans and Bullets option are done by the mod at the beginning of your turn. Which means – important point – if you produced trucks this turn then they won’t show up (on the report), or be taken into account, until the following turn.

Transport Resources

This is the option that involved the most effort to program and is also going to require the most explanation. This part is long-winded and involves a small amount of maths. Very simple maths for the purposes of showing how it works (none involved in using it) but still maths nonetheless. It requires that you devote a portion of your busy, multi-tasking brain to the subject matter in order to comprehend what’s going on.

That’s the bad news. I personally consider this the best one of the three options (but then I’m the guy that made it) and the one that requires making the most interesting decisions. It’s also the most challenging of the three options.

So off we go.

First up is that you can only select this option in conjunction with the Connected Resources one. If you inadvertently messed up the ticking of the correct option boxes then the mod will take care of it for you and assume that you meant to choose both.

You can, of course, select only the Connect Resources option and ignore this one.

To avoid all the mumbo jumbo explanation read the ‘Executive Summary’ below and, perhaps, ‘Important things to Know’. Read the rest only if you are interested in how it works or are interested in knowing how to optimise your approach.

Executive Summary

Resources, even though they may be connected, have to be transported to your capital. This requires you to build a bunch of trains and cargo ships. How many you need to build depends upon how many resources you have to shift and how far you have to shift them.

Having a few resources close by your Capital will be a matter of a couple of trains. Having a lot of level 3 resources half way across the map will get you into the ‘swear at the wife and kick the cat’ red zone.

There are a number of action cards. They tell the Fat Controller to focus on, for example, Oil only. Who is the Fat Controller? He’s the large gentleman in the top hat who controls everything for you and handles all the micromanagement. Feed him biscuits and he’ll be happy. Most of the time.

Any resources that are connected but that fail to make it to your Capital ‘cause you couldn’t be bothered to build enough trains will end up in your ‘Reserves’. This is a stockpile (two actually, one for each resource) that keeps getting bigger until you finally get your act together and provide the Fat Controller with enough transport assets to handle the day to day stuff and to have sufficient left over to make a dent in the Reserves.

Transport assets dedicated to moving your resources don’t have to be anywhere in particular. Like the trucks in the Beans and Bullets option as long as they are somewhere within your empire then they count. You can still use them to transport your forces and do things like strategic transfers. The mod won’t interfere with your operation beyond requiring that the necessary trains and cargo ships are present.

Cargo ships move three times the amount of resources that a train does. Unlike trains, however, cargo ships burn a small amount of fuel (50 bbls per cargo ship) each turn while doing so. If they are way over yonder on military exercises then you can assume that the Fat Controller has chartered in a civilian cargo ship as a replacement but he still has to provide it with fuel.

If you want to tear off and learn by doing then consider yourself adequately boned up on all the essentials. Just don’t forget the bit about the cat. That’s the key piece of information. Seriously.

Important Things to Know

Resources must be connected to your Capital.

Resources required transport Capacity to move back to your Capital.

Transport capacity is measured in t-Nm (see below). Trains and Cargo ships are have are both rated at a certain amount of t-Nm that they can do per turn.

Cargo ships have three times the capacity of a train but burn fuel (50 bbls) per turn in addition to any other fuel they may burn for normal usage.

Resources require 10 t-Nm to move 1 hex for each ton of resource.

A land hex is the same as a sea hex for transport calculation purposes. Eg. ten hexes of land is equivalent (in distance and transport capacity) to ten hexes of sea.

Oil is converted to tons for the purposes of transport at 12.5 bbls per ton (level one OIL site produces 20 t, same as a level one RAW site).

Each turn the mod figures out how much transport capacity is required to move both your RAW and OIL resources.

It also figures out how much transport capacity you have available (trains and cargo ships).

If you don’t have enough available capacity to meet your requirements only a portion of your resource are transported (a proportional percentage). The remainder are sent to your ‘Reserves’.

Your Reserves can’t be used until, they too, are transported to your Capital. This only happens if you have excess capacity above and beyond your requirements.

The Fat Controller handles all the details. You can tell him (via Action Cards) to focus on a particular resource, eg. OIL. If you do this he will direct all available capacity to moving OIL and only what’s left over (if any) will be allocated to RAW.

The Fat Controller uses a default setting of ‘Balanced’. He allocates exactly half your available capacity to RAW and the other half to OIL.

You also have the ability to tell him to prioritise Reserve movements. If you told him to concentrate on OIL he will direct all available excess capacity to moving your OIL Reserves. If there is any left over he will then move your RAW Reserves.

Any trains or cargo ships you build will be taken into account the following turn.

You are given bonus resources (400 RAW and 2,000 OIL) and a handful of trains and ships (varies depending on if your Capital is a port or not) to get you started. If you are playing a 1 town start then you get your bonus resources but nothing else. Don’t want to spoil you.

Effort or why is this so Easy and that so Hard?

Consider this a look under the hood. It’s the technical part - you can skip it.

How do you measure the effort involved in moving resources from A to B?

quote:

Effort = Distance x Amount.

Having decided on this you have to come up with standard forms of measurement in order to provide some consistency. Distance is measured in Nautical Miles (Nm). What the heck?

Nautical miles, believe it or not, are an international standard used universally throughout, unlike kilometres and miles. (For those that are curious a nautical mile is 1,852 m. About 1.8 km’s and 1.1 miles)

I’ve waved my magic wand and declared each hex on the map to be 10 Nautical Miles. I can do this ‘cause I’m the mod god.

Amount is easy. Tons.

RAW mines generate tons of resources. OIL comes in barrels (‘bbls’) of the black stuff. But there are a lot more barrels in a level one OIL site (250 bbls) than tons in a level one RAW site (20 t).

Develop it further to a full level three facility and the capacity jumps to…

Transport Capacity required = 40 Nm x 100 tons = 4,000 T-Nm

O.K, so our single train is starting to struggle. It can only move three quarters of the RAW resources this turn back to the Capital. So 15 tons will be moved and the remaining 5 tons will be sent to the reserves.

The stockpile of RAW reserves will continue to grow each turn until you have sufficient transport capacity to meet your requirements. Resources in the Reserves can’t be used by you until you manage to transport them, like any other resources, back to your Capital.

This won’t happen until you have enough transport capacity to deal with your requirements and have excess capacity left over. This excess is employed, by the Fat Controller, to start moving your Reserves.

Like a great big pile of money, frustratingly just out of your grasp, your Reserve stockpiles (one for RAW and one for OIL) will continue to grow until you stop your warmongering ways and start buying trains.

Let’s look at that picture again.

Over yonder, through plains of blissfully grazing buffalo and snaking through the swampy delta, is a lonely railway line leading to a lonely level one OIL well. What’s involved in getting vital Oil back to our thirsty Capital?

Hey, that’s a lot. Our solitary, hard working, train that could easily handle the nearby RAW site all the way up to level 3 development (struggling a bit at lvl 3 but still moving most of it) can now only move sixty percent of the meagre output (3,000 / 5,000 x 100 = 60%). Our Capital will receive a mere 12 tons of Oil (150 bbls) per turn, with the remaining 100 bbls (250 – 150 = 100 bbls) sent to the Oil Reserves.

Wow! Even Thomas the Tank Engine isn’t going to move that. In fact our huffing and puffing little train will move only 15% (3000 / 20,000 x 100 = 15%) of the OIL sites output which is 12 tons (150 bbls). This is exactly the same as before which is how it should be. A train is a train.

Better put on more trains. How many? Well at 3000 T-Nm per train you’d need to have seven trains working the line to shift all that oil per turn.

How bad would it be if we went the full hog and developed our OIL site to level 3?

The astute reader may have noticed that a level 2 or 3 RAW site no longer coincides, amount wise, with identical level 2 or 3 OIL sites. That’s because Vic (game designer) has tweaked the RAW values down in the latest patch. As a result more effort is required to move a level 2 or 3 OIL site compared to a similar RAW site.

Not mentioned until now is the fact that the transport capacity of a train (and cargo ships) is tweaked by the mod according to the map size. Larger the map the greater the capacity.

T CAP% is your available transport capacity this turn. In this case it’s 99% so you are looking good. The other two show the size of your Reserve stockpiles. Remember you can’t use them until you have surplus transport capacity above and beyond what you require.

This doesn’t mean that 99% of your resources will be transported this turn. On the default setting of ‘Balanced’ the Fat Controller will allocated half of your capacity to RAW and half to OIL.

If all your RAW resource sites were close to your Capital and all your OIL sites were a long way away then you are probably going to be able to transport all of your RAW but only part of your OIL.

In the report above (which you get every turn) you can see that you have the stated 99% of the required transport Capacity (top line) which is enough to shift 125% (all) of your RAW (second line) but only 82% of your OIL. As a result 270 bbls of Oil end up in your Oil reserves due to a lack of transport.

There is another report that you can see (if you click the ‘Detailed Report’ option) which tells you why this is so.

O.K, looking at ‘1’ we see the RAW required capacity is 20,400 t-Nm. The figures for distance and amount are tallies of all your individual RAW resource sites so you can’t multiply one by the other to get the total. In the interests of brevity I won’t explain why this is so but suffice to say that the figure is accurate.

Same for the Oil in ‘2’.

Adding both these up 1+2=3, the Total Capacity required. This is how much transport you need to shift everything this turn.

‘4’ is the Available capacity, how much you actually have. The mod doesn’t differentiate between trains and ships for the different routes. So you could feasibly have a wholly train based system running your multi-island transport network.

Trains don’t float so this is a bit of a stretch. However in reality if you have a water-based map you’ll have a few cargo ships by necessity. On the other hand if you have a totally land based map you’ll be unable to build anything other than trains so in both instances you’ll end up with an appropriate mix.

Number ‘5’ is all your train and ship capacity added together, in this case 51,000 t-Nm which works out at 99% of the required amount of 51,600 t-Nm.

Now the Fat Controller splits your capacity in exactly in half (if you have ordered him to be ‘Balanced’, eg. treat both resources the same).

So your Raw capacity would be 25,500 (half of your available 51,000) divided by 20,400 (the RAW cap required at ‘1’) which gives 125%. So all RAW is transported to your Capital.

Your Oil capacity would be the same 25,500 divided by 31,200 (the OIL cap required at ‘2’) which gives on 82%. So a portion of your OIL doesn’t get transported and ends up in the Reserves. This has happened because your OIL sites are further away (on average) from your Capital than your RAW sites and require commensurate greater capacity to move. Game Play Implications

Strategy wise it is easy to see that the closer a resource is to your Capital, the more valuable it becomes. Distant resources require a significant commitment in order to fully utilise them.

Think long and hard about upgrading distant resources. If you don’t need them right now then don’t overstrain your transport network unnecessarily.

Don’t be afraid to tell the Fat Controller to prioritise one particular resource if you are running short.

Trains or cargo ships? Trains on land maps of course but otherwise a tough decision. Cargo ships cost only twice that of a train yet move three times the resources. Both cost the same to build in RAW so on the face of it you should build nothing but cargo ships. The hitch is that trains are free to run, cargo ships aren’t – 50 bbls of OIL per ship per turn to pay for resource movement duty. That can add up.

Complicating matters is the fact that cargo ships can be built by Shipyards and – if so – they are essentially free production that doesn’t take away from your army, supply or Political points. Trains are the opposite.

Consider bullet proofing your transport network. Look for the weak spots and try and build a rail line or a port that provides a backup route. Hard to do when fighting a war but sometimes it’s necessary if your main ‘hub’ is in the firing line.

Also think about building new rail lines and ports in order to shorten the distance that your resources have to move to get to your capital. This can pay big dividends. Balance

Just about impossible to balance this option. Way too many variables involved. A huge map with many opponents could have you controlling a small area with nearby resources whereas a small map could have your resources spread far and wide.

What I’ve done instead is too tweak the main factor (transport capacity per train) according to the map size and handed out a bunch of free resources and transport assets at the start.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a bountiful situation of plenty. Other times you won’t. Life wasn’t meant to be easy.

All I can say is wow, amazing work Lancer. I've read it all, had some questions but they almost all got answered reading it. I think this really is a major addition to ATG gameplay fun. I encountered the very same thing against the AI as you, beat AI easily, got swamped by AI+ (facing tons of heavy tanks II where I barely managed to have light tanks LOL).

So now we can finally play with the Fat controller and Thomas the Train, hehe. I knew I saw that name someweres... fatcontroller-fatcontroller, hmm, where did I see that name before... hang on a sec.. Thomas the Train!

So bbls stand for barrels? I thought that was a bit weird, googled it and it's indeed the case, although it seems to be uncertain why there are two b's in bbls . Ah well, another thing learned.

I think you got it all covered in your wellwritten, allbeit a bit lengthy... , description, except; how does airsupply work? Still the same way? Planes are supposed to deliver oil and beans? Another question, what happens if you set a new HQ for a producing city, other than the Supreme HQ in your capital, and you set that city to producing Oil or Ore? So the oil and ore would get sent to that HQ, would then the rule still count that transport capacity will be available "" if" on the map? (hmm, maybe that wasn't even a question, I should just play the mod rather than ask silly questions).

So bbls stand for barrels? I thought that was a bit weird, googled it and it's indeed the case, although it seems to be uncertain why there are two b's in bbls . Ah well, another thing learned.

Thought I'd mentioned it in my opus. Clearly not. Fixed.

quote:

how does airsupply work? Still the same way? Planes are supposed to deliver oil and beans?

Have as many planes as you want, just don't expect them to deliver resources. Trains and Cargo ships only. Planes can still deliver supply to cut-off units but will have no effect on your supply range (Beans and Bullets).

quote:

Another question, what happens if you set a new HQ for a producing city, other than the Supreme HQ in your capital, and you set that city to producing Oil or Ore? So the oil and ore would get sent to that HQ, would then the rule still count that transport capacity will be available "" if" on the map?

All resources end up in your Capital. You can still produce units where-ever but it is assumed that all the cogs of industry eminante from the Capital. Once the resources arrive they are automatically distributed to where they are needed by private industry and the Fat Controller. If he's in a good mood.

Open ATG and use the 'Install Zip/File' button on the main menu using the above file.

That - all being well - should be it. All the bits should now be in their proper place.

A new directory in your /mod folder contains a PDF of the mod documentation.

Whenever you start up ATG you will be asked if you want to use 'The RESOURCE Mod' or the standard 'Generic' masterfile. Don't forget that the Resource Mod is nothing more than the normal Generic file with the three extra options so if you loaded it and didn't select any of the options it would behave identically to the Generic ATG file.

As everyone else has said, this is great work. I think this option will allow for better design possibilities for AI vs. human games, which is my interest. I really enjoyed your description too!

I can also see it's potential for human to human games. As is, it adds a great extra dimension to game play. Your mod now makes games focused on issues such as control of the shortest lines for access to Middle East oil production quite do-able!

Also, I think designers of human-to-human games may want to pick up where you started and add resource interdiction options (i.e., penalties for supply losses at sea or the destruction of bridges). It would definitely be even more of a game changer!

NATO Counters Mod combined with RESOURCE Mod (ATG v2.05): RSCNATOMOD.atzip (3.75MB) I suggest right clicking on link and choosing Save Target As (IE) or Save Link As (Firefox), then save to a location of your choice. This mod provides NATO counters to the RESOURCES mod.

@Lancer: Any time Matrix publishes a new patch that updates the generic.at2 file, you'll need to update your resource.at2 file as well for that new ATG version.

Any chance of having these wonderful changes incorporated to my Global Domination scenario? If you explained me how you developed the code, I could place it in the scenario....

You're welcome to integrate away.

I've put in a couple of events (find them under 'Explanation'), that are nothing but comments, that explain how the mod works, what does what and how the files (stringlists) are used. Also made an effort to put as many explanatory notes in the code as possible.

There is, however, a fair whack of code. Lots of wheels turning under the hood. The code references a large number of game and regime variables (additional and seperate to the generic.atg ones). I'd imagine that your scenario would have an overlap here which would require changing all the relevant variables (either your scenario or my mod) to avoid conflict.

Could also be a similiar conflict with predefined units (easily sorted as only a few) and stringlists (more involved - extensive use of stringlists within the mod).

As the editor doesn't have a search and replace function this would have to be done - carefully - by hand which isn't something I'm overly excited about.

I've been using a third party tool to help with my ATG coding and that would, however, make integration feasible and manageable - if you wanted to have a crack at it.

Give me a day or so and I'll put a post up on the aforementioned tool as I'm sure it would be of interest to others.

I´ve started a scenario with no fuel refineries availables at the moment, only own 2 mines of raw. The problem is that I have one cargoship consuming fuel every turn. Due to my lack of fuel it´s not a minor issue. I have plenty of trains and trucks too. It would be nice if I could have the priority to choose the resources transportation, perhaps a card. Let´s say:

1-Trains (do not consume fuel) 2-Trucks 3-Cargoships

Another question:

Is it possible to use trains instead of trucks in the beans and bullets option?

The bonus resources that you get at the start are designed to cover the situation you've mentioned above - starting without a particular resource. Hopefully you'll have enough to tide you over until you make a beeline for an OIL resource.

The cargoship is one of the freebies as well to provide you with a certain base amount of transport capacity. You only get it if your Capital is a port. You could decommission it if you wanted to go into 'fuel conservation mode'. The Fat Controller would understand.

quote:

Is it possible to use trains instead of trucks in the beans and bullets option?

No. Trains only run on train tracks. Armies don't fight exclusively on train tracks so I've opted for trucks to get supply to the troops. The trains do the job of shifting the supply to the HQ's (inbuilt into ATG - automatic function) and then the trucks take over to fan it out from the railheads.

The mod isn't designed to be hyper-realistic (important to keep it fun) but that's, from what I've read, pretty much what happened in WW2 with the movement of supply.

Also wanted the trade-off that your logistical tail of trucks burns a little bit of fuel. Bigger your army, the more fuel you are using just to keep it supplied (never becomes oppressive, just enough to be noticeable).

So the way it is designed is that trucks are for Bullets and Beans (supply) and Trains & Cargoships are for shifting Resources.

I have builded two more cargoships in another port. They are getting drunk with my fuel.

The mod gives you a bonus 2000 bbls of Oil at the start (above and beyond the normal). A cargo ship uses 50 bbls of Oil per turn as a result of having to transport resources back to your capital.

That gives you 40 turns to find Oil - assuming you haven't started with any as in your case. You also get a bonus 400 Raw which should be enough for your engineers to construct a port and build rail lines to the OIL site if needed.

If you want to build up your Merchant Navy right from the start - without any access to Oil - then best start drilling.

The Fat Controller recommends running a very lean operation until you get your hands on some Oil.

I've put in a couple of events (find them under 'Explanation'), that are nothing but comments, that explain how the mod works, what does what and how the files (stringlists) are used. Also made an effort to put as many explanatory notes in the code as possible.

There is, however, a fair whack of code. Lots of wheels turning under the hood. The code references a large number of game and regime variables (additional and seperate to the generic.atg ones). I'd imagine that your scenario would have an overlap here which would require changing all the relevant variables (either your scenario or my mod) to avoid conflict.

Could also be a similiar conflict with predefined units (easily sorted as only a few) and stringlists (more involved - extensive use of stringlists within the mod).

As the editor doesn't have a search and replace function this would have to be done - carefully - by hand which isn't something I'm overly excited about.

I've been using a third party tool to help with my ATG coding and that would, however, make integration feasible and manageable - if you wanted to have a crack at it.

Give me a day or so and I'll put a post up on the aforementioned tool as I'm sure it would be of interest to others.

Cheers, Lancer

-Thank you, meanwhile, I will take a look on your code, the trouble I see is that I changed lots of SFT´s in my mod, so it will need some extra editing...

I have some suggestions for the resource mod, perhaps some of them are not possible to do or require excessive micromanagement:

1-No haunted trains: Trains need SOMETHING to consume, it doesn´t matter if you choose raw or a new resource (coal or minerals).

2-Vehicles Transportation priority: Some countries can have a lot of raw instead of oil, so they would choose trains instead of trucks or ships. It could be done Using cards.

3-No flying Ships: Ships that are not connected to resources shouldn´t be able to carry. In this way we can save a lot of fuel. The problem is that we cannot destroy cargoships...

4-Horses: Poor countries or those with lack of oil or raw should be able to use horses to carry resources. I suppose it will be neccesary plenty of horses (consuming loads of supply) with a limited landcap.

re 1: Disagree - trains use coal and coal is considered to be in abundant supply. Seems reasonable to me. Don't think we need to add a coal resource hex to the game.

re 2: Trucks are required to move supply from railheads or ports to the troops in the field. No getting around that.

re 3: Not sure what you mean by 'flying ships.' Whatever the case, lets not get bogged down in micromanaging resources. Re destroying cargo ships: they can be disbanded like any other unit in the game. The only requirement is that they be in a port before you can disband them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jafele

I have some suggestions for the resource mod, perhaps some of them are not possible to do or require excessive micromanagement:

1-No haunted trains: Trains need SOMETHING to consume, it doesn´t matter if you choose raw or a new resource (coal or minerals).

2-Vehicles Transportation priority: Some countries can have a lot of raw instead of oil, so they would choose trains instead of trucks or ships. It could be done Using cards.

3-No flying Ships: Ships that are not connected to resources shouldn´t be able to carry. In this way we can save a lot of fuel. The problem is that we cannot destroy cargoships...

4-Horses: Poor countries or those with lack of oil or raw should be able to use horses to carry resources. I suppose it will be neccesary plenty of horses (consuming loads of supply) with a limited landcap.

1-Coal is "considered" abundant if you own many mines of coal or if you have the money to buy it. I doesn´t come from the sky. It happens in real life.

2-Trucks are required only if you have fuel to feed them. What happens if you don´t have oil? Are you going to feed them with water?

3-A flying ship is a kind of vessel that transport magically resources from a not connected port to a far capitol city. I´ve noticed that some ships located in the port of a far close lake are able to carry resources.

As I told before, some of them can require excessive micromanagement, in that case ignore the suggestion. Simple as that.

I don´t know how to disband a cargoship. Would you mind to show me how to do it?

Thanks

quote:

ORIGINAL: Webizen

re 1: Disagree - trains use coal and coal is considered to be in abundant supply. Seems reasonable to me. Don't think we need to add a coal resource hex to the game.

re 2: Trucks are required to move supply from railheads or ports to the troops in the field. No getting around that.

re 3: Not sure what you mean by 'flying ships.' Whatever the case, lets not get bogged down in micromanaging resources. Re destroying cargo ships: they can be disbanded like any other unit in the game. The only requirement is that they be in a port before you can disband them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jafele

I have some suggestions for the resource mod, perhaps some of them are not possible to do or require excessive micromanagement:

1-No haunted trains: Trains need SOMETHING to consume, it doesn´t matter if you choose raw or a new resource (coal or minerals).

2-Vehicles Transportation priority: Some countries can have a lot of raw instead of oil, so they would choose trains instead of trucks or ships. It could be done Using cards.

3-No flying Ships: Ships that are not connected to resources shouldn´t be able to carry. In this way we can save a lot of fuel. The problem is that we cannot destroy cargoships...

4-Horses: Poor countries or those with lack of oil or raw should be able to use horses to carry resources. I suppose it will be neccesary plenty of horses (consuming loads of supply) with a limited landcap.

I won't be updating the mod for the latest v2.07b patch, not yet anyway.

I'll do so internally but I'm currently in the middle of developing an expansion to the mod (provides an in depth Leader system) and the work involved to surgically extract the existing mod from the half completed expansion would be sizeable.

Instead, once I've finished the expansion, I'll upgrade the entire mod in one fell swoop.

If possible I'd update your mod to support v2.07. I'm not a programmer but if it is possible using the import functions I could accomplish it. Just give me some instructions and I'll have a go at it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: lancer

G'day,

I won't be updating the mod for the latest v2.07b patch, not yet anyway.

I'll do so internally but I'm currently in the middle of developing an expansion to the mod (provides an in depth Leader system) and the work involved to surgically extract the existing mod from the half completed expansion would be sizeable.

Instead, once I've finished the expansion, I'll upgrade the entire mod in one fell swoop.